#88 - Rabbit Rabbit welcome to Magnanimus March!

Ahhh March. The benchmarker month of being able to firmly declare that we “made it through winter” even though for those of us living in New York City it’s feeling like we never really had a full fourth season. I say that with the meager remnants of the one « snowfall » we DID get still on the ground outside of my window.

LA outdid us in terms of snow this year. Nature is uh, not healing in that regard.

Anyway, new month! We’re gonna spring forward and my cats are going to think I’m being extra nice and feeding them “early” for like two days, there will be drunken crowds stumbling their way down Wyckoff when St. Patricks Day rolls around (once again I will be convincing myself that this is the year I finally make brown bread in my own home as per tradition), and I am going to get to wear my favorite layers and jackets once more! I ordered myself some bagels to be delivered this morning and it turns out there is literally nothing that makes me feel more spoiled and luxurious than having Knickerbocker Bagels brought straight to my door. I even got a fresh squeezed orange juice this time, like am I ascending a throne later today??

Recently I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about what good it does to hold onto anger and resentment. If there is any benefit to being ungenerous when it comes to assumptions if there is a foolhardiness in my continued belief that despite the suffering, most people really are doing their best with what they have at any given moment.

It’s so easy to spot the lack of humanity when it comes to policy decisions. But the truth is, money corrupts so thoroughly and richly that despite our awareness of the evils it is nearly impossible to avoid. Politicians are rarely The Best Of Us, but I would wager they have some pretty decent folks working in their offices, genuinely trying their best to improve their corners of the world.

Most of us don’t operate on that level. Most of our daily choices appear to have a much smaller radius of effect. But I believe that energy ricochets. It really is always worth it to be kind. What’s there to lose? You were more empathetic than someone else?? It’s not embarrassing to try, it’s only embarrassing to fear failure so profoundly that we never try at all.

Last month I spent a solid two weeks recovering from a flu and primarily watched a live play podcast of Dungeons & Dragons the entire time. And because I’m me, once I was done a season I immediately went through behind the scenes and cast interviews and the podcast run by the DM where other people come on and nerd the fuck out about characters, settings, creating lore, all of the good juicy process geek shit that I love. Also they all seem to be having a great time while they play and there’s just something so wonderfully addictive about talented groups of friends fucking around with each other it’s my favorite form of content and only enhances the behind-the-scenes of it all!

(Hell yeah give me that 20-minute segment discussing best snacks during a game! I love behind the scenes!! I love you stories from set, I love you cast commentaries, I love you Making Of featurettes, I love you deleted scenes with an intro by the director explaining why they were cut. Movies and TV feel so hollow now because we get ~content plopped on a network, reviled for 48 hours, and we move on to the next. Do you know how many commentary tracks have been made for the movie Titanic??? There’s one just made by two Titanic historians who point out every inaccuracy in the movie. It’s incredible!! I could literally spend entire days learning and relearning about all of the actors perspectives and varying approaches by the art directors and I’m just saying that my favorite part about art is actually cracking it open and looking at the how of it all rather than just the finished result. For me, it only enhances the experience to know what their other options were and why they thought a certain decision would be more impactful. An editor’s job is just making decisions all damn day let them talk about their decision-making skills!)

I’ve been attempting, once again, to do some fiction writing and it’s been one of those ~oh, huh, I really do struggle with creating narratives~ moments for me. It’s not that I’m bad at it, I’m great at the note-taking and planning stages, but when it comes time to come up with conflict, I am so avoidant in my own life that I always hesitated to inflict it on characters in the story. And that’s like some 101 bullshit that I was shaming myself for not having “gotten over” by now. I write! I spend more time writing these days than a decade ago when I was getting my literal degree in the subject! I am also uh, not lacking in terms of dramatic narratives—there have been many a-conflict in my life it’s not like I’m in need of inspiration!

Yeah, turns out that shame wasn’t making me a better writer. The anger at having given up time and time before was stopping me from wanting to try again. Unfortunately, writing more is really the only thing that helps me improve. (And reading. Reading is helpful too.) Oftentimes writing is a skill of force. The discipline is really referring more to making sure you sit down and produce every day. Honestly, as a skill in and of itself, writing is not all that useful when you don’t have much to say. Raw talent is often less advantageous than unabashed effort. Anyway, I have to acknowledge the gap accurately in order to clear it, and I’m really trying my best to get excited about learning new things rather than be ashamed of how long it took me to learn them.

There is something addictive about learning and gaining perspectives and broadening the scope of our understanding. But in order to learn best we have to let go of those voices that want to shame us for not knowing already. There are so many spaces in the world where we want to enforce strict rules that determine how good of a person you are based on when you learned about a concept or consequences. (And like, work-related side tangent: someone knowing a piece of social justice dogma before someone else should not inspire the same vibes as being sad their favorite underground indie band now has a #1 and they just want to make sure that everyone else knows they knew it before it was ‘cool’. What’s the goal there? What are we gaining by being gatekeepers to coalitions? It’s just reducing the size of the union and causing everyone inside the movement to remain on edge. Social Justice isn’t a competition. Winning just looks like equality of treatment regardless of circumstance. It’s meant to obliterate oppressive dynamics, not just put new people in charge of the unchanged institutions!!)

If the goal is getting better, it doesn’t matter when we do it. Only that we did. If shame and guilt aren’t good motivators, I highly recommend letting them go!! It’s okay to like yourself, it’s good actually to love yourself without couching it in accomplishments and capitalistic measures of wealth. Society demands certain achievements of comfort before allowing us to relax, but what if we just grant ourselves that grace instead? It’s okay, we’re living in some weird times with some real irresponsible politicians skimming lots of $$ off the top of pork barrels. It’s okay to indulge in our small joys. I’m not going to be a nihilist about winterless futures because it’s actually both unhelpful to the future of climate activism AND it makes me sad but holy shit I feel like I’ve never noticed weather more than in the last few months. But in some ways, that made me appreciate those days more. I went and sat and wrote in my little notebook and had cigs in the sunshine.

It’s worth it to be gentle with ourselves and others. By being wildly generous with the narratives I assign to others’ actions I am able to remain more at peace with the world. People, for the most part, are trying their best. We all have off days, weeks, months, and moments! My time at college was basically a 3.5-year-long panic attack and was certainly not radiating kindness for myself, let alone others!! And you know what, that’s the best I could do at the time. We made it through.

We gain so little from hate, derision, and resentment. It’s okay to be selfishly optimistic in order to keep going forward. Magnanimity is transformative and powerful. It does take emotional discipline to continuously be generous with those who do not return it in kind. But it’s simply so much better than the alternative. And like anything, it gets easier to do with practice over time.

It’s sunny out again today and I’m going to one of my favorite little parts of Brooklyn to pick up more cat food and possibly pop by trader joes for some exciting additions to my spice rack. Also, my bagels have now arrived so I’m gonna go mow down and sip my coffee and try to not chug the orange juice in one go. (That really lacked the glamour I felt when ordering so I guess picture me eating them with like a palm frond being waved in my vicinity?)

I hope you have a lovely little March filled with sunny days and blossoming buds and all of the exact beverages you want in the moments you want them. Good things are out there!! And they become much more apparent when we’re focused on finding them.

Rabbit rabbit!

✌️💚🐰